Tom Stoddart's best shot

Wednesday 1 October 2008 19.01 EDT
First published on Wednesday 1 October 2008 19.01 EDT

I shot this picture in 1992, when the siege of Sarajevo was just beginning. It was one of the rare opportunities when the Serbian forces were allowing children to be bussed out by their parents to escape the shelling. This particular scene was re-enacted in the Woody Harrelson film Welcome to Sarajevo.

I saw the woman - who was very striking, with blue eyes - fighting back her tears. She had dressed her little boy in his finest kit, and it was obviously a very emotional time. There was also tension in the air; the Serbian forces were not averse to lobbing grenades into crowds. I shot a few frames up close and the picture was used around the world.

Two and half years ago, I got an email from a woman living in Perth in Australia saying: "I know who that woman is; she's my neighbour." So I went to Perth and tracked her down. Her name is Gordana Burazor, and Andre, the little boy, is now a teenager, and about 6ft 2in tall. Through all that time, I had always thought she just put the child on the bus, but in fact she managed to bribe her way on board as well.

She hates this picture. But when I'm talking to young photographers, I always say it is my kind of image: black and white, and you look into their eyes, trying to read what's going on in their minds, without them even noticing you.

She first saw the picture a few weeks after it was taken, and then periodically over the years, but never wanted to contact me. She said she hates it because she was trying to be completely dignified. And the one moment she did what she was trying to avoid - crying - was captured in this frame.

Curriculum vitae

Born: Morpeth, Northumberland, 1953.

Studied: "Self-taught, and then I started on a weekly paper in the north-east. You could say the University of Life."

Inspirations: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Don McCullin, Eugene Smith.

High point: "Having a ringside seat for historic moments. I was on the Berlin Wall the night it came down, and later spent six weeks with Nelson Mandela."

Low point: "Just after I took this picture, when I was badly injured in Bosnia. An explosion knocked me over a wall. I was off work for a year."